More "Birdy" Words You Should Know

A group that’s always held my interest, even before I was into birding, is birds of prey. When I went on my first hawk watching field trip, I was told it’s easiest if you first separate the accipiters from the buteos from the falcons. I just nodded, I’d heard the word falcon before but what were the others mentioned? I had no clue, luckily an old saying came to mind: it’s better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you’re an idiot than to open it and remove all doubt. So, there I stood, watching specks in the sky and trying to absorb as much of the chatter as possible, hoping no one asked my opinion.

When I got home I quickly looked into buying all the titles of the books I saw floating around and after getting my first hand me down computer I bought a couple of cd-roms with great video-game-like hawk watching quizzes. After almost 20 years, I’m able to identify most hawks that fly over our yard without running inside for 5 different field guides.

Accipiters have relatively short rounded wings and a long rudder like tail that gives them the ability to follow prey through thick bushes. They usually fly with several wing flaps then a glide. We have three species, Sharp-shinned, Cooper’s and Northern Goshawk, the most common hawk to see around feeder stations is the Sharp-shinned Hawk, it can be seen scouting around the yard with it’s characteristic flight pattern, when prey is spotted a sprint through the trees is likely to follow. Telling the sharpie from it’s close relative the Cooper’s Hawk in considered one of the toughest identifications for the hawk watcher, in general, the Cooper’s is larger, but there is overlap, an immature female sharpie might be larger than an adult male Cooper’s. They say to rely on several “clues” to come up with your ID.

I still haven’t checked off Cooper’s on my life list. Maybe I should put that on next years to do list.

The Northern Goshawk is a little easier to tell apart from the other accipiters, it’s larger and thicker, and has a distinctive plumage. They too can be seen around feeder yards, bearing down on an unsuspecting pigeon.

Buteos have broad wings, wide bodies and short tails, they’re able to soar for long periods. Buteos are the main subject of most hawk watchers, hundreds can be seen on a one day hawk watching stint as near by as New Horton in Albert County. Locally the buteos include the Red-tailed Hawk, Broad-winged Hawk, Rough-legged Hawk and the occasional Red-Shouldered Hawk.

Most people hear “falcon” and they think Peregrine, but there are 3 falcons commonly found in New Brunswick, and yes it’s great to think of the Peregrine Falcon again as somewhat common. We also get the Merlin who looks much like a mini Peregrine and the one who nests in houses is the Kestrel, a beautifully coloured falcon about the size of a robin. Compared to the accipiter, falcons have long tapered cycle shaped wings and a short tail, they fly with constant flapping compared to the intermittent flap glide of the accipiter. Falcons rely on speed in open spaces, rarely continuing the chase into bushes.

So, if you’re on a hawk watch and you hear, “Buteo at 10 o’clock.” You can at least narrow your guess down to 4 species, or less, first it’s not likely a Red-shouldered, Rough-legged overwinter here and leave early, Broad-winged feed mostly on cold blooded animals so they arrive last and leave first. Red-tailed hunt mostly mammals to they will arrive first and leave late. If the first 250 buteos spotted were Red-tailed, you’ll likely be safe guessing Red-tailed, but you never know for sure.

You might hear: “We went on a birding trip to Grand Manan and I picked up 3 lifers.” They weren’t talking about picking up hitchhiking escaped convicts, they were referring to 3 new birds they added to their life list. Most birders keep a list of the birds they have identified, there is the life list, day list, year list, yard list, province list, county list, many even keep a yearly province list, yearly county list…you get the picture. I keep a life list and yard list, I’m not big on paper work.

Some try for big days, tallying up the species they can see in a 24 hour period, there are areas where a skilled birder can get over 200 species from midnight to midnight, (not individual birds, species) and some put their lives on hold and shoot for the big year record, crisscrossing the continent following migration and rare sightings, (the record is 745 species).

There are people who are referred to as “twitchers” these are people only concerned with checking off another box in the list. They don’t really care about observing the bird, taking in the habitat, watching behavior, just getting a glimpse and moving on, usually they don’t get out of the car, or even shut it off. They’re called twitchers because they get all twitchy at the thought of adding another check mark, although I see it in books, I’ve never heard anyone called a twitcher, but I’ve met quite a few people who fit the bill.

The Bird Quiz

I'm still hoping someone will get 100% on the quiz. So far though nobody has gotten every answer right, even if I allow for the answers that are a matter of opinion. I even challenged the subscribers to the natureNB listserve. I guess I made it too hard, next time I'll try to take it easier on you guys.

You still have almost 2 weeks to get your answers in.

To further sweeten it, I'll give an automatic $20 gift card to the first 100% and leave your name in the draw (so if you're the only one in the Grandmaster category you're guaranteed $40).

If you already took it you can try again, I'm just not going to tell you which answers were wrong.

Oh well, with $40, I'll be able to take my wife out to a romantic dinner for our 20th.

Dwayne

Birdy Words Defined and Explained

Some “birdy words” explained, so you can follow a conversation with a hardcore birder.

You might hear: “We’re going on a pelagic trip next week.”

This means looking for birds that normally hang out over the “open sea”. Groups will often charter boats and head off shore to look for gulls, gannets, skua, jaeger and more. These birds are often seen during whale watching trips. Technically, I suppose if they say pelagic trip they should be going out on the water, but if they say, “...going after some pelagic birds”, they may just be going to Pointe du Chene for fried clams and check out what wanders close to shore or steals fries off the next picnic table...not nearly as impressive.

You might hear: “I’m a little slow getting started, we were owling until the wee hours.”

Sounds like a wild time, and maybe it was, they were out after dark in search of owls, either by sight or more often simply listening for the calls. One might mimic the owl calls or play pre recorded calls through a portable player or over the vehicles sound system. I’ve been...one night we saw a Saw-whet Owl, heard a Barred Owl and a Great Horned Owl. The Great Horned was at first distant but within seconds it was so close I couldn’t help ducking and waiting for a territorial owl to strike my head. It was not impressed by the intrusion, I was quite eager to give it some space.

If you walk up to a couple of birders who are arguing whether the vocalization they just heard was song or a call, you might want to just keep walking. There is a difference but it’s not an argument you want to enter.

It’s usually only the male that sings, he does so to claim territory, attract a mate and to communicate if he already has one.

Many species don’t have songs but claim territory with flight displays, but most birds to have calls, they’re usually shorter and have different function than song. Some calls indicate alarm, aggression, or a quick contact call to keep in touch. If you are outside after dark in about a month you’ll here various single note whistles and chirps, these belong mostly to warblers and some sparrows. They are keeping in touch with each other while migrating south at night. Stand there for a while and you’ll likely hear hundreds of call notes, you’ll be wondering where they all came from since you only see a few in the day time.

Legend has it, there are people who can identify each bird from this call note, but how would I know if they were wrong? They all sound the same to me.

Some birds make non-vocal sounds considered by some to be song, woodpecker and grouse play the drums (my favourite part of any song), the winnowing of a snipe and the buzzing of a hummingbird is made with stiffened tail feathers during courtship flights.

The wing whistle of a Mourning Dove taking off is considered an alarm call, while the wing whistle of the Black Scoter in flight is a great way to keep track of the flock while migrating at night.

You might hear: “I saw a warbler high in the canopy, when I pished him down, it was a Bay-breasted.”

Pishing is blowing air in short blasts through closed teeth, like you do to call a cat. A curious bird will come a little closer to see what’s making the noise and you should be able to get a closer look. Some describe it as an art, but the only tricky part is knowing when to stop. I’ve been with people who are standing nose-to-beak with a bird and they are still pishing, when the bird flew away I’m sure I heard it mutter a few choice expletives, I know I was.

You want to hide yourself somewhat, pish a couple pishes, and wait. The best thing that could happen is for a chickadee to come along and scold the pisher, chickadee’s being one of the most pishable birds. If you have a chickadee over you scolding, sit tight, stop pishing and wait to see what comes along to join in the scolding. Sure you may have won the county pishing competition but you’re still no match for a chickadee when it comes to attracting other species.

If you’re out with a group, etiquette states that you should ask if we agree it’s OK to pish, if so you should have a designated pisher, both for the birds sake and your own, you don’t want to get stuck in the middle of 30 octogenarians all pishing at once.

You should have an idea of which birds are pishable (I hope that’s a word, I use it so much I’m used to it), for instance; warblers are very pishable, shorebirds are not, I’ve heard of some pishers at Mary’s Point who came close to being thrown into the bay. Chickadee and finch...very pishable, hawks not so much, continuous pishing on a “hawk watching” cliff is probably dangerous to your health too (if you’re with a group).

One hawk that is quite pishable though is the Northern Goshawk, here’s an exercise for you “over pishers” out there, next spring, stand under a goshawk nest and pish, you’ll likely get great close up views (and a few scars to brag about over drinks with other birders, don’t mention the pishing though).

Juvenile Laughing Gull

Here is the Picture of the sea bird we tried to ID at the Market today.
The picture was taken at 1:24pm on Wednesday Sept. 8th
We were about 3 miles off shore and about a mile or 2 west of Cape Enrage when I took this picture.
The bird had no fear of people. It stayed with us for about an hour. It would peck at the chum ball we had set up to attract sharks. Then it would circle the boat (flying) and hover about 2 or 3 feet over from my head and about a foot above it.
While in the water it kind of looked like a morning dove. The boat captain said he had been on the bay all of his life and has never seen one of these birds before.

Let me know what you come up with

thanks
Don LeBlanc